Interferon is a certain type of glycoprotein induced in human and other animal cells by viral or other stimuli. The interferon has an inhibitory action for the growth of virus, bacteria, or protozoa in cells. In order to apply it in man as a medicine, it is necessary to obtain the interferon produced in human cells because of its species specific. To obtain large quantities of human interferon, it is necessary to collect a large quantity of human lymphocytes, human fibroblasts, or human lymphoblasts, etc. then to stimulate them by suitable means to produce the interferon, and to recover the formed interferon in a high yield.
The conventional recovering methods, however, have such defects that they are too complicated in the procedure and are too time-consuming to be carried out on a commercial scale, and further they have an additional disadvantage of low material yield.